ASTRONAUTS CAN NOW BE RADIORESISTANT

A new paper proposes a roadmap for making mankind more resistant to radiation and other forms of stress- and age-associated damage. “The cost of one productive life year (PLY) for humans in space is likely to be much higher than on Earth and efforts should be made to maximise PLYs of the colonists. High radiation is among the first challenges that needs to be addressed and productive longevity will likely be a side effect of increased radioresistance,” said Dr. Alex Zhavoronkov, the founder and CEO of Insilico Medicine, Inc. Although considerable efforts are under way around the world to colonise the Moon and Mars, these efforts are primarily focused on technological capabilities while the ways to tackle space radiation have been ignored. The main components of space radiation are solar particle events (SPE), geomagnetically trapped radiation, and galactic cosmic radiation (GCR). Launching humans into space is not only going to be very expensive but also medically challenging.